It was late in the night and I was barrelling down the highway at 100 kmph when I heard and felt a massive bump.
I soon heard a nasty grinding noise that could mean only one thing - I had a flat tire.
The road had no shoulder – the tall grass came up to the edge of the road. I had no choice but to plough in. I stepped out and was set upon by swarms of insects. I had no torch, my phone had died, I had no additional lighting. I had to feel each tyre. The front left tyre felt flat but was hard to tell. First things first – I thought I will get further away from the road. This meant going further into the grass. With my phone dead, I had to use the sat phone. The reception was patchy so I contacted my Support team viz. my wife back in Sydney. Firstly, I asked for roadside assistance to be informed. My car GPS seemed to think I was about 20 kms from Wilcannia. She made a few calls on my behalf and got back with the not-ood news. No roadside assist in Wilcannia so they have to drive out from Broken Hill – about 2 hours away. They would not give the contact details of the bloke for privacy reasons. He may be headed my way. Also it appears I was only 2.5 kms from Wilcannia. 9,000 kms across Australia and I come to grief on the way home, just 2 kms from my last stop! Glass half full – I thought – this could have happened on my way out or in the middle of the Nullarbor. Soon the roadside assist bloke got in touch. He said it will take 3 hours (an exaggeration!) and is it something I can fix myself? I was parked in tall grass and I wasn’t sure if the tiny jack I had can be set up. Eventually, he resigned to making his way.
I had a 2+ hour wait. A mini-swarm of insects had followed me into the car. In readiness, I moved all my luggage from the boot to the passenger seat in preparation for hauling out the spare. I also tracked down my Aeroguard and sprayed liberally. I also managed to charge my mobile from my laptop and get GPS coords - the car GPS had mislead me more than once. I relayed this to my wife. It appears they refused to take the degrees-minutes-seconds format and would only take decimal! She googled the conversion and sent that to them. I also found out a fully charged mobile would not have helped – there was no signal.
I settled down. It was getting hot in the car. But I had plenty of fuel in the tank. So I ran the motor for a while to cool the inside. Now how do I kill 2 hours in the middle of nowhere with no internet? I put on the music, pulled out my tablet and continued reading my book. Every 10 minutes or so, the car music system would shut down automatically. In this time, the cabin would get uncomfortably warm again. So I got into this routine of running the engine for a few minutes and then shutting it off. This would wake up the music system and the cabin would cool down. The hitchhiking bugs were flying around and landing on the lit console or the tablet. I kept swatting them off.
In 2.5 hours, the headlights behind me showed the road assist chap had arrived. He limped out and checked the tyre. Yes, it was flat and the space saver spare had to go on. I set to work pulling the space saver tyre out. He had a professional jack – the tall grass was no problem. He soon had the wheel off. A dent on the inner rim was the culprit. There was no nearby place that can straighten out a rim within 300 kms. The best bet was to limp back to Sydney on the space saver tyre and get it fixed at home. The road assist guy suggested driving 100 kms at a time and waiting 15 mins for the tyre to cool down. I put the damaged wheel in the boot – the boot is tiny and it was a relief to find it fitted and did not even block the rear vision. I extricated myself and headed out to find the hotel.
Here is a dashcam footage of hitting the pothole played back at half the speed.
The plan was to change the trip back of 10 hours to two blocks of 5. Find a place to stay halfway and continue the next day. I had serious problems finding the hotel in the dark. It was supposed to be after a bridge, outside the caravan park. When I got there, no hotel. The caravan park appeared flooded. Back to my wife, who googled the location and it appeared I had to take the next left. And guess what – there was another bridge and another caravan park there! I finally tracked down my room and unloaded the car. No sign of wifi. May be I just go to bed and check in the morning. Then I sat down, pulled out my last and by now, lukewarm beer. I also had a smooshed burger bought 4 hours ago. A leisurely dinner later it was off to bed and up in 6 hours.
Next morning, went to reception to get wifi access and a late checkout. The owners were sitting back relaxed and were sympathetic. New plan, break up the little over 10 hour drive into two halves. Stop at Dubbo for the night. I will be doing about 1000 kms on the space saver – so stop periodically. Drive at the recommended 80 kph the entire time. All said, having almost twice the time should make it all possible. After booking a room in Dubbo, I set off at noon. I drove and stopped every 1.5 hours. At each spot, I waited 10 mins and set out again. As I set out, I realised it was no different to my travels so far. The speed was lower but the road was the same. The frequent pauses are what is usually recommended anyway.
Daylight revealed the damage to my wheel. There was a massive dent in the rim. Inner tires have gone the way of the carburettor and even the slightest dent in the wheel means the tire cannot stay inflated. And this was quite a big dent. This usually involves sending the wheel in for repair where they heat it up and bend it back into shape. Sadly, it is not the first time it has happened to me. It costs about $250 and usually, the tire is wrecked and needs changing as well. Make it nearly $1000 but still under the insurance excess. There was no crack or the repair bill piles up more. The opposite front tyre also felt the bump but the rim survived. It ended up having a bubble on its side. The tyre repair guy back home suggested keeping it and keeping an eye on the bubble. Over the next few months/years, it got a little bigger but never burst on me. It survived right up to the time the tread was worn out enough to justify a change.
In retrospect, it was dumb to let the mobile run out of charge and not have the spare charging cord ready. The previous cord had stopped working. But it would not have helped - there was no signal in or outside Wilcannia. I did not pack a torch. Again, made no difference. The tyre was flat as suspected. I did have an Iridium sat phone. This was a BIG BIG help. The old Thuraya would have been a pain to use. I did have a poor connection but I could get through all the time. Half the time, the car dashboard antenna allowed me to talk on the phone inside the car without being assaulted by the swarm of insects. But every now and then, I had to get out of the car to use the phone. Going forward, barring any technological progress, it will have to be an Iridium and definitely not the Thuraya. The Inmarsat is similar to the Thuraya so that is out too. It is amazing that in the past 7 to 10 years there has been so little progress on satphones. So two bad decisions that made no difference and one good one that made a huge difference. The glass was looking fuller by the minute. All that preparation of a satphone in case I need it on the Nullarbor and I end up using it in NSW. I also kept the PLB (Personal Locator Beacon) in my pocket the entire time – just in case a snake in the tall grass or a dropbear in a tree decided to add to my troubles.
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